From Burnout to Clarity: How Better Leadership Rebuilt Focus, Culture, and Growth (E.163)

“It’s about systems and communication. Consistent communication.” – Dr. Justin Villafane

Brief Overview of the Episode

Dr. Justin Villafane opens up about a season when his practice felt heavy, confusing, and unsustainable. After dropping a large portion of his insurance participation, production fell, pressure rose, and he found himself questioning everything. What he thought required more marketing actually required something deeper: stronger leadership, better systems, and the courage to have clearer conversations with patients and team members.

In this conversation with Victoria, Justin shares how clarity changed the direction of his practice. Instead of reacting, discounting, and carrying the stress alone, he began leading with more confidence, diagnosing more comprehensively, communicating more consistently, and building a culture that could support real growth.

What This Episode Reveals

• Decision fatigue is rarely just about being busy. It often comes from unclear leadership and too many unresolved issues.
• Marketing cannot fix a practice that is operationally misaligned.
• Patients respond well when doctors communicate with honesty, confidence, and clinical clarity.
• Team culture improves when everyone is hearing and saying the same thing.
• Growth returns faster when the leader stops avoiding the real problem and starts addressing it directly.

What You’ll Learn

• How leadership inconsistency quietly affects culture, trust, and production
• Why systems and communication matter more than another tactic or shiny add-on
• How to move from reactive treatment planning to comprehensive patient conversations
• Why patient trust often increases when doctors speak more clearly about what is needed
• How operational clarity can restore focus and create healthier growth
• What it looks like to go from feeling overwhelmed to building momentum again

If This Sounds Familiar

• You are hitting month after month of stress without feeling real traction
• Your team feels tension, but no one can clearly name the problem
• You keep wondering if the answer is more marketing, another service, or a new offer
• Patients are hearing mixed messages from different people in the practice
• You feel like you are carrying too much alone
• You know your practice can grow, but the path feels scattered and exhausting

Next Steps

• Do the free assessment meeting.
• If you want help seeing your practice accurately, book a 30 minute clarity call with Victoria.
• Get honest about where leadership, communication, and systems are creating drag in the practice.
• Stop trying to solve internal problems with external tactics.
  

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TRANSCRIPT

[00:00:00] VIctoria Peterson: Have you ever felt like you’re the only one? You’re the only one who’s struggling in your practice? Who’s struggling with team issues? Who’s struggling with insurance? Well, I’m here to tell you that you’re not. Hello, I’m Victoria Peterson. Welcome to the Investment Grade Practice podcast. I am here with an incredible human being, Dr.

[00:00:29] VIctoria Peterson: Justin Vine from the great state of Nebraska. Justin, welcome.

[00:00:35] Justin Villafane: Hi. Thanks for having me, Victoria. It’s a pleasure.

[00:00:38] VIctoria Peterson: You know, before we came on air, you were sharing a story of recently being at a conference and you came back understanding that you all dentists have a lot of things in common. Can you share that for me please?

[00:00:51] Justin Villafane: Sure it, you know, it was a pretty big implant conference and, um, so we’re all there learning about implants and dentists. I used to [00:01:00] be the young dentist at these things and now I’m kind of like mid range, like there’s young dentists and now there’s like people older than me. Uh, but I mean, I heard people of all ages just in passing and conversations like.

[00:01:13] Justin Villafane: You know, there’s a lot of people that are frustrated with, I think it boils down probably to the business aspect of dentistry, of dealing with insurance and the headache of that. And, um, and patients like wanting the insurance to cover everything and for dentistry to be free and or cheap at least. And unfortunately it’s not.

[00:01:33] Justin Villafane: And, um, you know, six, seven months ago when I started PDA, like that. I probably would’ve freaked me out, um, because I was struggling at that time. Um, the practice wasn’t in a good place and, um, I, um. After hearing all these individuals kind of talk about it, I was just like, you know, like it is a very challenging environment right now.

[00:01:58] Justin Villafane: Um, and you know, [00:02:00] there’s several ways to go about it, but you just have to make yourself stand out. You gotta up your game. You gotta do things that you know, other people don’t do. Or if they do, do ’em, do it better. Um, and so, you know, I’m fortunate that I live in Lincoln, Nebraska. There’s a lot of great dentists here in town in the surrounding area, like lots of great dentists.

[00:02:19] Justin Villafane: So it’s not like the old days where, you know, people stayed at an office if they, even if they didn’t like the dentist. ’cause there was nowhere else to go Now, like they can just go down the street and it’s a great dentist. Like I, I’m, I have friends on either side of me and they’re, they’re amazing. And, um, yeah, so it’s, it’s one of those things where.

[00:02:39] Justin Villafane: I think we’re all just trying to figure it out and, um, I do some implants, but I, I wanna be able to do more, um, and refer out less. And, um, I mean that’s what I was kind of there to learn. But I also learned some of these older dentists are kind of dealing with the same thing I was, and they’ve been at it for a lot longer than me.

[00:02:58] VIctoria Peterson: Uh, thank you for [00:03:00] that. I think the struggle is real and, um, and it’s only growing. You know, tariffs aren’t helping. Supply chain breaks aren’t helping. Um, virtual work is not helping, you know, brick and mortar businesses. I mean, dentistry is. A, a real people business, literally hands-on. You couldn’t think of a more hands-on profession than the heat arts and medicine and dentistry.

[00:03:26] VIctoria Peterson: And so the pressures are different than they were before. You mentioned you came into coaching about six or seven months ago. Just in short period of time. Where were you and what did it feel like and where are you now in the, in kind of, in the middle of, of this and what do, what does it feel like today?

[00:03:45] Justin Villafane: So, um, I started PDA in June of last year, and, um, we had just dropped like 50% of our network insurance plans, uh, because [00:04:00] I had been told by a consultant like, that’s what you do and you know how to go about it, and that type of stuff. I had two full-time, uh, hygienists at the time, and long story short.

[00:04:11] Justin Villafane: Obviously patients left. Um, and, you know, one or both hygienists weren’t busy anymore. ’cause that’s, I live in a pretty affluent area, um, so to speak. And so it, you know, people, they just mainly need maintenance. And so if they can go to a great dentist down the street and get their teeth cleaned and doesn’t cost ’em anything, like, I don’t blame them.

[00:04:31] Justin Villafane: Um, and so I kind of, you know, shot myself in the foot, so to speak, um, just by like, you know. All right. We’re dropping it and we’re gonna keep the two biggest ones and we’ll be fine. Well, we weren’t. Um, and I mean, we got to a point where, I mean, it’s just me and one hygienist and I have two assistants now.

[00:04:52] Justin Villafane: Um, but I mean, we were down to, I mean, I was producing 50, 60 KA month. Um, [00:05:00] just with, you know, there was nothing going on. I didn’t know how to, you know, treatment plan comprehensively, or I did, I just wasn’t, um, I was just in a real bad place. Like I felt like I was letting my staff down. I felt like I was letting my family down.

[00:05:12] Justin Villafane: Um, thank God my wife is an amazing, amazing person and amazing businesswoman. Um, and so. Thank God my family wasn’t relying on me. ’cause I, I needed to get my stuff together. So, um, so I had contacted my friend down the street, um, who was also a dentist and I knew that she had started an office from scratch and she’d used PDA.

[00:05:39] Justin Villafane: And just, she’s an amazing, incredible person, great personality, and she’s doing amazing. Um, but she used PA to kind of seed the ground and, you know, advertise, Hey, I’m gonna be here. I’m opening this day, like very well, thought out a plan, and in my head I’m like, I need to, I need to market. And [00:06:00] honestly, like I didn’t, I really didn’t have any money to do it.

[00:06:04] Justin Villafane: And so like I took out basically the last loan I could, and I, you know, um, I contacted PDA and talked to Sarah and, um. She was amazing. Like, ’cause she could have totally been like, Hey, let’s, let’s do this with this media campaign and, you know, these advertisings and these flyers and stuff. And, you know, I, I think she, I think it was her and Angela that got on a call with me.

[00:06:29] Justin Villafane: Um, and they were like, you know, I think after what you’ve told us, I think you’d benefit more from a coach than from a. From advertising right now. ’cause it sounds like you need to rework some stuff at the office and they’re absolutely right. My, um, my leadership wasn’t good. It wasn’t strong, it wasn’t consistent.

[00:06:47] Justin Villafane: Um, I was super stressed. Uh, and so all those things bleed through. Um, you might be able to hide it from the patients, but I mean, your staff can feel it. Um, and it just, I wasn’t [00:07:00] enjoying it and, you know, I was just in a pretty bad place. And so, um. I got introduced to my coach, Kim, and you know, she was great and she’s like, don’t worry, you know, we’re gonna help you fix this and put some systems in place.

[00:07:16] Justin Villafane: And I mean, really that’s what it’s about. It’s about systems and communication. Um, consistent communication. Um, as with anything and all relationships, it usually boils down to communication. Uh, and if you’re not doing that, like it’s either gonna affect your business, your staff, your relationship, your marriage, you know, everything.

[00:07:33] Justin Villafane: So, um, that’s kind of how I came into PDA in June and I think, like I said, I was not producing a lot and just from, you know, mainly patience of record and I, I just started talking to ’em all about like. I had really fallen into that trap about, um, hey, this tooth is cracked, doesn’t hurt you don’t have decay and you haven’t broken it, so insurance is gonna pay for it.

[00:07:57] Justin Villafane: We’re gonna watch it, or there’s no reason to bringing it [00:08:00] up. And during this time I was also listening to, um, Dr. Baird and listening to his whole series of podcasts, and he’s just like, no, it’s not. That’s not right, like tell the patients what you’d want and I mean is a hundred percent right, like your chances of needing endo or you know what?

[00:08:17] Justin Villafane: Losing the tooth go up. Exponentially if you break it or it becomes painful before you do the crown. And so I just started explaining that to my, my longtime patients. And I was very surprised at, I was a little afraid that they were gonna think, oh, he wants to buy a new house or, you know, he must have a boat payment.

[00:08:35] Justin Villafane: ’cause I’ve been coming here for 10 years and he’s never going, wait,

[00:08:37] VIctoria Peterson: do you need a boat in Lincoln, Nebraska?

[00:08:40] Justin Villafane: Not at all. And I’m not a boat person, so I, no, not at all. So, I mean, there’s people here that have boats. We got lakes. But yeah, nothing, nothing, nothing fancy out here.

[00:08:53] VIctoria Peterson: Oh, that’s that great.

[00:08:55] Justin Villafane: But it was super well received and to my surprise, [00:09:00] it wasn’t, oh, you’re, you’re just trying to get money outta me.

[00:09:03] Justin Villafane: They’re just like, all right, you showed it to me. We took pictures. I was like, makes sense. Let’s just do it. And you know, of course, having the conversation, look, you, there’s a good chance your insurance won’t pay for this. Okay. Um. We will do everything we can. We’ll go above and beyond in submitting PAs and integral, uh, pictures and, you know, a good narrative about the things we do.

[00:09:24] Justin Villafane: But at the end of the day, insurance companies like to deny things. And so I just want you to be aware, you know, best case, they’re gonna pay this. Worst case, you’re probably gonna have to pay this. And again, well received. And

[00:09:37] VIctoria Peterson: you’re having this conversation.

[00:09:39] Justin Villafane: Hmm?

[00:09:40] VIctoria Peterson: You’re having this conversation with the patient or is you?

[00:09:42] Justin Villafane: Yeah. Yeah, I was.

[00:09:44] VIctoria Peterson: I wanna highlight that because, uh, so many things about what you’ve said already Justin, are so courageous. I just, I don’t know if you feel courageous, but like my heart is just like so big for you [00:10:00] and your story. Um, and, and to sum it up, I’m, I’m putting the finishing touches on my investment grade practice book, the Compete, do the podcast, and, um.

[00:10:13] VIctoria Peterson: You just illustrated three simple words that everything is founded on and people that I send it out to, they go, yeah, what’s this compassionate, preventative, comprehensive care? What it, what’s your real compelling why? He said, well. That’s how you showed up. I’m compassionate for my patient, not what would insurance cover?

[00:10:34] VIctoria Peterson: What would I do in my own mouth? What do I know as a clinician about what’s down the road for this patient? And do I have compassion for their future pain or am I gonna bypass it today? Because, well, you know, teeth break, I’m sorry for you. Right. So you had compassion about the future potential, and then you had the courage to be preventative.

[00:10:59] VIctoria Peterson: And I have [00:11:00] to tell you, I became a hygienist before scaling and root planning was even a procedure. So we. Been a minute. It’s been a minute. And I can remember dentists saying, I don’t want you to do like all the new fluorides were coming in. People were accepting, I don’t want you doing fluorides and preventing decay.

[00:11:17] VIctoria Peterson: I wanna do molasses trays and give a whole, like, we’ve come a long, long way. So as someone who started out as a preventative specialist, to hear you dentists understand that it’s not just. Perio that we’re preventing, it’s caries that we’re preventing. It’s breaking teeth, it’s heart attacks, it’s stroke, it’s the whole oral systemic realm.

[00:11:40] VIctoria Peterson: You know, that is a much bigger view of prevention and you demonstrated that with this patient and then comprehensive care. I’m so glad you referenced back to Bruce because he would not know how to not be comprehensive and. I remember, uh, we went on quite a few trips together to [00:12:00] the Dominican Republic and you know, you think about missionary dentistry and it’s just pulling teeth and sending them on the way.

[00:12:05] VIctoria Peterson: And he is like, this is ridiculous. We have a clinic here. Why isn’t it not open while we are here? Why are we waiting for the Americans to come? What does it take to fund this clinic? They need cleanings, they need fillings, they need childcare. And we found out, honestly, it took $2,000 a year. To place a dentist there one day a week.

[00:12:28] Justin Villafane: Oh my gosh.

[00:12:29] VIctoria Peterson: So let’s open it up three days a week and let’s give this community real healthcare. So we hired some dentists and I mean. The Dominican director, we funded it and said, go find people who wanna work here. So now we can’t go to that clinic anymore because nobody needs missionary dentistry,

[00:12:47] Justin Villafane: did you?

[00:12:48] Justin Villafane: Good.

[00:12:48] VIctoria Peterson: Right. And so I, I feel like that’s what you’re doing. It was a bold move. Number one. I, I will put a, a shameless plug here. We’ve got a new program. You may not even know this. We’ve got a new program. [00:13:00] We’re starting live events again in September. So September 10th and 11th, we’re gonna be in Denver, Colorado in a brand new program called Unrestricted.

[00:13:11] VIctoria Peterson: Spending your PPO dependence, because there’s the, I hate insurance, I’m dropping half of ’em, and we’ll see if the elevator stops before we hit the basement.

[00:13:22] Justin Villafane: Yeah.

[00:13:24] VIctoria Peterson: And then there’s the other way that, you know, in the beginning, doctors would go, I don’t wanna wait 12 to 18 months, but think about you’re on the right path now.

[00:13:34] VIctoria Peterson: Let’s get our staff in line. Let’s do comprehensive care. Let’s have courageous conversations with our patients. Let’s put new systems in place that are built for fee for service. Let’s market for more. Fee for service or insurance. Adjunctive not primary. Get all your ducks in a row for the model. Put membership plans in place where people are coming for a different reason than the insurance.

[00:13:59] VIctoria Peterson: Then [00:14:00] your patient base might be 3000 patients. A thousand or insurance you can convert. ’cause you still have 2000 patients of record.

[00:14:09] Justin Villafane: Mm-hmm. But

[00:14:10] VIctoria Peterson: so that’s what that program’s gonna be all about. So it’s all the PDA principles that you’ve talked about and you love with diagnostics and marketing and communication, but helping doctors who might be new to PDA.

[00:14:22] VIctoria Peterson: Understand that there’s a system for it before you make that courageous leap. Uh, so I’m happy you found us. What does it look like just six months later? I know we haven’t fixed all the problems of the world yet, but how’s it going?

[00:14:38] Justin Villafane: I mean, like I said, it, it wasn’t a good, good scene around here. I was, I was pretty burned out.

[00:14:44] Justin Villafane: Um, and I guess I was always kinda. Well, this isn’t, you know, making, you know, making me more productive. What about this thing? You know, what about Botox? What about this? What about that? And I already do really [00:15:00] good, like, you know, services that nobody else does around here. And I have more experience in it.

[00:15:04] Justin Villafane: And instead of focusing on that, I was just. You know, I’m pretty sure I have undiagnosed A DHD and OCD, like pre

[00:15:11] VIctoria Peterson: everybody in dentistry does.

[00:15:13] Justin Villafane: Absolutely. And my wife too. So our two boys are just bouncing off the walls. Um, but it, I, it was like that. And I think as I’ve gotten older, it’s gotten worse. I’m like, what?

[00:15:23] Justin Villafane: You know, just that. Um, but I. I had done some sort of projections for 2005 and like a target for every month and, um, up until June, so ending in May, um, you know, that’s six months, um, five months. And, um, I think I hit my target that we were going for, for production, um, maybe half of those months and then sometimes not even close.

[00:15:56] Justin Villafane: 20, 30, 40 grand under and just, [00:16:00] yeah, I was. I was just, uh, I was drowning. I think I used that term with, with Sarah and Angela. Like, I feel like I’m drowning and I don’t know what to do. I don’t know if I wanna keep doing this. Like there’s probably something I can do. It’s probably not gonna be as profitable, but I mean, what I’m doing right now is not profitable, so I might as well figure out something else to do.

[00:16:19] Justin Villafane: And they were so, so, so, uh, caring and they kind of took me under their wing. And, you know, I kind of told you like, instead of doing. Advertising, which is what Sarah does. She’s like, I gotta turn you over to our coaches and then we’ll get to advertising, but we gotta fix some stuff first. And she was just a hundred percent right.

[00:16:38] Justin Villafane: Like, all the things going on in my office that I’d blamed on, um, staff and, you know, the things going on and the clearing house, you know, getting hacked and, you know, it, it really boiled down to me like almost all the problems in our, in our practice were because of me, because of me not being a good leader, me not.

[00:16:59] Justin Villafane: Diagnosing [00:17:00] things properly. Me not charging for things. Like I’m a really nice guy. I like to give stuff away and I shouldn’t. So like, you know, when I’m, when I’m doing a highly complicated procedure, like I, I need to charge for it, but there’s sometimes I’m just like, I don’t want to, and you can kind of fall into a habit of just like, oh, I’m just gonna do this.

[00:17:18] Justin Villafane: Pulp cap won’t charge him, or I’m gonna do the gingivectomy, not gonna charge him. Um, and you know, that’s something that Dr. Baird harped on. He’s just like, you are doing the service. You are one of the best at what you do. You have to charge for your services. Everybody else says like, why are you, why are you giving everybody a discount?

[00:17:35] Justin Villafane: And so, um, I think the first month, um, we overshot whatever our goal was by like 15,000. Um, just no advertising, just diagnosing like, Hey, this tooth is cracked. Here’s a picture of it. We should fix it before it breaks most of my patients. All that’s, that’s all it took. Like, okay. Yeah, I trust you. I’ve been coming here forever.

[00:17:56] Justin Villafane: So, um, and then by month [00:18:00] three, um, I think we’d upped our production 30%. Um, but I mean, you gotta realize where I started from. So, um, but it, it’s all PDA and showing me how to do systems and how to communicate with my staff so we are on the same page so patients aren’t hearing different things. Um, and then they don’t trust you.

[00:18:22] Justin Villafane: They’re like. Okay, you, you’re talking about this crown on all of a sudden, like nobody said anything about this. What, what’s going on? Um, and it just, it makes such a difference. If your hygienist takes just a picture and showed, puts it up on the screen and says, this tooth is cracked and it’s gonna break at some point, the doctor’s probably gonna wanna talk to you about it.

[00:18:43] Justin Villafane: And they get that, like, they let that sit and ruminate for a little bit. And then if I come in and I’m like, oh, you’re breaking stuff, man. What’s going on? Um, and don’t get me started on everybody that’s on, like, you know, anti-anxiety meds and SSRIs. Like I don’t have a problem with decay so much as I have [00:19:00] a problem with like bruxism attrition, like just mechanical fracture.

[00:19:06] Justin Villafane: And you know, most of the time if there’s a K on a crown prep, it’s ’cause they cracked it. Didn’t do the crown for a while and it started leaking internally and then they got decay and then I’m like, Hey, we gotta do this now. And you know,

[00:19:20] VIctoria Peterson: oh,

[00:19:20] Justin Villafane: that’s just kind of the area that I’m practicing it and you know,

[00:19:24] VIctoria Peterson: it’s.

[00:19:26] VIctoria Peterson: I’m gonna come back to that in just a second. So I wanna wrap up this session. So, uh, let’s see. This is March, so it’s been nine months and you started out somewhere around 50,000 a month under-producing, can’t pay your bills, stressed out thinking you needed marketing. And hats off to the amazing team at Phoenix Dental Agency because I have told them.

[00:19:48] VIctoria Peterson: We don’t sell brochures, we don’t sell websites, we sell solutions, and we may not be the right solution. So thank you for reflecting that. Our ad agency really takes that to heart because [00:20:00] they know that they, they can get the people knocking on your door, but if what’s behind that door. Isn’t functioning.

[00:20:07] VIctoria Peterson: You get zero ROI then you think marketing doesn’t work. You get pissed off at us and then you stop marketing because marketing doesn’t work. So a hundred percent cycle. Um, where are you today? Just ballpark. A, a productivity, just so we know what’s possible.

[00:20:26] Justin Villafane: Um, I mean, I was producing probably a little more than the average when I started.

[00:20:31] Justin Villafane: Probably 400, 4 50, um, an hour. Um. I didn’t even know what that was or what that meant. Um, but, you know, Kim broke it down. And then just that first month, I think I was, you know, 5 50, 6 50, just from talking to patients that were already in the chair. Um. Now like, you know, we got the segmented scheduling, scheduling for production.

[00:20:55] Justin Villafane: Um, I did purchase a milling unit recently and so [00:21:00] that’s kind of thrown a wrench into our scheduling for production ’cause it takes me longer now.

[00:21:04] VIctoria Peterson: Sure.

[00:21:05] Justin Villafane: But we’ve been doing it for two weeks. I’ve, I’ve cut it down like how long it takes me and it’ll be even better. Right now I am kind of doing mostly, um, the design because I want to kind of get my hands on it and mark the margin and make sure it’s okay, but I’m gonna start turning my assistance loose and, you know, check in.

[00:21:23] Justin Villafane: But that’s gonna free me up to get back to what I was doing before we got the milling unit, which is kind of a bottleneck right now. But yeah. If they can kind of handle all the heavy lifting on that crown and get it milling and I can be doing something else with my other assistant. And then, I mean, we’re back, we’re back cooking with gasoline again.

[00:21:40] Justin Villafane: So, um, I think um, in February we produced a little over 115,000, um, and. We’re projected to do more than that this month, um, longer month. Um, but on that same note, Jody said, Hey, you guys upped your fees at the beginning of the [00:22:00] year. It’s easier for you to produce more, but you’re writing a lot off because we still have some PPOs.

[00:22:05] Justin Villafane: And so that’s something we have to wrap our mind around. And, um, it’s just my market is a very, very heavy, everybody gets their insurance through their employer. So everybody’s got their PPO. They just want their free cleanings. They don’t wanna, they don’t wanna get off their, their cheap.

[00:22:22] VIctoria Peterson: Yeah. Yeah, I get that.

[00:22:24] VIctoria Peterson: I get that. Well, congratulations. Um, this is, this is a reflection of you putting in the work. You know, we often say that the, the practice can only grow to the maturity of the leader and

[00:22:36] Justin Villafane: Yeah.

[00:22:37] VIctoria Peterson: You, you really kind of looked in the mirror. I think he looked gently at first, and then you turned on all the lights and said, all right, let’s just face it head on.

[00:22:46] VIctoria Peterson: And, uh, encouragement to anybody who’s listening to this podcast. It is really not scary to turn the lights on. The scary part is just flipping the switch. It usually, what you’re gonna find is a wonderful, compassionate, amazing human [00:23:00] being staring back at yourself, but you haven’t been taught the systems.

[00:23:04] VIctoria Peterson: And nine outta 10. I’ve been a, a consultant for 30 years. I’ve got a lot of friends who are consultants, and I can tell you the primary framework goes something like this. Volume times value equals collections or production, right? Mm-hmm. And the emphasis is on volume fill. The schedule, reactivate your patients, reappoint at certain rates.

[00:23:27] VIctoria Peterson: It’s all a rate. Peace. And so that’s really good in the beginning. Like your friend down the street who scratch started volume is your friend in the beginning. But once you get 1200 patients, a record 1500, then you’ve got challenges of abundance. Like I’ve got, it’s me and two hygienists. I don’t want three hygienists.

[00:23:46] VIctoria Peterson: How, how do I take care of all these patients? And you, if you stay in that model too long, you’re just juggling out healthy patients because we re. Appoint the [00:24:00] ones that we like, i’s what I did as a hygienist. Mm-hmm. I don’t like Bob. He’s, he’s pain to work on. I’m not gonna reappoint him. Like Mary, she’s, she has no tartar.

[00:24:12] VIctoria Peterson: She doesn’t bleed, and she’s pleasant to talk to. So your schedule gets filled up with really nice people who have no needs. And so our high knee patients are put on the back burner. Our heaviest PPO write off patients who are compliant come in and then you’re trapped. That sounds like the place you were at.

[00:24:30] VIctoria Peterson: And it was courageous. It was bold. Your elevator did stop somewhere around the second or third floor, which was great, but. You now you’re playing the value game. I’m gonna have Jody go back and look and see where was your per patient value when you started and where’s your per patient value today. So if you haven’t checked with her on that, check that because you flipped the narrative, the volume time, value equals results still there.

[00:24:59] VIctoria Peterson: You’re [00:25:00] just putting more quality of care, quality of value, comprehensiveness prevention, those pieces. So now you can see fewer patients. Do better care, which is really cool. I wanna talk about that. The name of your practice is Floss Family Dental Center. And Surgical Center. That is a mouthful. It’s a big name.

[00:25:20] VIctoria Peterson: You’ve got a big vision. Tell me, you said you hinted to it a minute ago. I do some, some special services, you know as well, or better than others. Talk to me about that. ’cause you’ve got some special niches.

[00:25:32] Justin Villafane: Yeah, so I mean, originally when we opened the practice in 2011, we, I had a partner, a classmate of mine, um, that was doing a lot of IB sedation, that type of stuff, and that’s kind of where Cervical Center came from.

[00:25:43] Justin Villafane: Um, and then he moved on to a different town near here. Um, you know, very, we’re still really good friends. He just had some family stuff and so he kind of departed and went up to Omaha. Um, and I’ve been kinda by myself since then and just trying to figure stuff out on my own, which. [00:26:00] Apparently I’m not good at and I just need a little guidance.

[00:26:03] Justin Villafane: And so that’s why I absolutely rave about PDA. And um, you know, I started my wife as a speech therapist and a Malfunctional therapist. And, um, probably about 20 17, 20 18, she had encouraged me to go see, um, somebody out in Los Angeles. Dr. Who’s, uh, head of the Breathe Institute out there, he is a sleep EMT surgeon.

[00:26:27] Justin Villafane: And, um. Her, her reason for that is she was doing some mayo and she was sending these kids to ENTs and they weren’t getting good releases or pediatricians were doing it, or, um, you know, pediatric dentists were doing it. And there’s a certain way that we’re trained as like tongue tie people, like people that do tongue ties.

[00:26:49] Justin Villafane: Um, that, to be honest with you, I don’t know how they’re trained surgically in the medical field. Um, I just know like. And I can say this without a reservation, like [00:27:00] my releases are better than theirs. Like they just are. It’s like my specialty. I can’t take out tonsils or adenoids. I can’t take out, you know, fully impacted wisdom teeth and I don’t want to.

[00:27:10] Justin Villafane: Um, but, you know, so that’s, I I really didn’t want to work on tongues ’cause it’s a different animal than teeth and bone and it’s like. Hard tissue, not scary, soft tissue, blood vessels, you know, nerves. Scary. Um, but you know, after going to the Breath Institute and being trained, like I just kind of fell in love with it and, you know, the success stories that you hear from working with people with, you know, these issues.

[00:27:34] Justin Villafane: And, um, so that’s kind of how I got into it. And that was mainly adults and older kids. Then, um, you know, babies and, and infant mothers are, um, another big part of my practice. And, um, the closest person at the time, it was right around, um, COVID, uh, was up in Omaha, like for the whole state. Like people were coming from, you know, the panhandle to Omaha to [00:28:00] have, um, one of the gals there that’s a friend of mine, and I actually talked to her before I went and got trained.

[00:28:06] Justin Villafane: Um. Just, you know, like, hey, like, you know, what’s, what’s your, what’s your take on this? Like, I don’t want you to feel like I’m trying to horn in on your stuff. Like, but I already do these. I wanna learn how to do, you know, work on baby safely. Would you be okay with that? Um, and she was. She’s like a Disney princess.

[00:28:25] Justin Villafane: So like she, she was a sweetheart and um, she was

[00:28:28] VIctoria Peterson: probably overwhelmed if you’re the only one in the entire state, you’d like to have some help.

[00:28:34] Justin Villafane: Yeah, she was, and I mean she books out quite a way still. Um, but yeah, she’s fantastic. And so, um, I went and got trained with Richard Baxter down in Birmingham, Alabama, and that’s the tongue Kai.

[00:28:44] Justin Villafane: He wrote the tongue tie book. Um, and I was already doing them with a laser and I just hadn’t worked on anything as young as an infant before. And so really I just needed to know how to wrangle a baby without hurting them when you’re doing surgery. I mean, obviously I had kids of my own at the [00:29:00] time, but, um, so it just, you know, fast forward to today like.

[00:29:05] Justin Villafane: I do a lot of tongue tie releases for kids to adults from my wife’s office, from other practitioners, like chiropractors are sending people my way. Um, and then of course I have parents coming from all over. Um, and I, you know, rising tide lifts all boats. Like that was one of, you know, Bruce’s big things.

[00:29:22] Justin Villafane: Like we don’t need to be, you know, protective and nasty about stuff. Like, I’ve helped several people get started doing tongue ties and like, Hey, this is what I did. Do you want my treatment planning sheets, my symptom sheets? I’ll give ’em to you. Um, because the guys that taught me gave gave me those things and, and they all went out and got trained and, you know, they’ll send me stuff they don’t wanna do.

[00:29:46] Justin Villafane: That’s just a little more risque than, you know, they, they’re comfortable with. And, um, if I have somebody call and they’re just like, Hey, we’re out in North Platte. I’ll say, Hey, I’d love to see you. We can get you. [00:30:00] I usually bump somebody’s occlusal filling if they need to get in for a tongue tie, especially for a baby.

[00:30:04] Justin Villafane: Um, nobody wants to get a filling done anyway. Um, so, um, but I’ll tell ’em, Hey, there’s a great dentist in Hastings. There’s a great dentist in Grand Island. There’s a great dentist in Kearney that do these things, depending on the age. ’cause all those, um, those other practitioners have kind of their niche.

[00:30:22] Justin Villafane: Um, but. I’m upfront, like I wouldn’t wanna drive all the way across the state with an infant, like, especially after surgery. Um, what I, what I found though, which is very gratifying, is a lot of times those parents will bribe. Like, they’ve already checked me out. They’ve done their recon. Like, they’re like, no, like I’m uncomfortable.

[00:30:43] Justin Villafane: Like, I’m uncomfortable with this in general, but I’m comfortable with you, so I’m gonna come see you, and we don’t care if we have to drive. And I’m just like, okay, I, I will take good care of you. So.

[00:30:54] VIctoria Peterson: God, I’d have to say that you, you just so epitomize what a productive dentist [00:31:00] is. You’re compassionate for the parents.

[00:31:02] VIctoria Peterson: You went above and beyond to get training to figure out how to wrangle babies, you know, before you did it. This has to be the ultimate and preventative care, like you’re, you’re preventing so many. A DHD, sleep apnea, airway issues, and eating issues and nutrition and all of that for a lifetime and. It is just so comprehensive.

[00:31:29] VIctoria Peterson: You’re not stopping at the teeth. We have quite a few doctors that are embracing tongue tie and laser, and I think it’s just one of the, one it, it will attract patients to your door like crazy because moms are the decision maker for the family. You just took. Use the care of my child from birth. You know, we are, we’re not going anywhere else.

[00:31:50] VIctoria Peterson: And of course my husband’s coming here and of course his kids are coming here. So it, it really is a snowball effect. I wanna ask you a question. You brought up another marketing [00:32:00] piece earlier, and I wonder if we’ve explored this. You said most of the people that I see are on anxiety meds and things like that.

[00:32:07] VIctoria Peterson: Depressive meds and they’re breaking their teeth left and right. Do you advertise to anxious patients? Are you optimized for if you’re taking these medications, your, your dentistry could be in jeopardy?

[00:32:23] Justin Villafane: Not specifically. No. I mean in terms of, yeah, that’s a really good idea. Victoria

[00:32:28] VIctoria Peterson: Gate,

[00:32:29] Justin Villafane: Uhhuh gate or just being gentle friendly, but no, not specifically.

[00:32:35] VIctoria Peterson: Yeah. They could optimize your website for that.

[00:32:37] Justin Villafane: Yeah. And I just wanna say one quick thing, um, because I do have quite a few people that. Don’t appreciate, like what I do is terms of tongue ties, which is fine, like they’re, you know, different providers and, um, different specialties. Um, it’s mostly because they don’t get it.

[00:32:52] Justin Villafane: And then there might be some ego stuff in there, but you know, you can really help any age, [00:33:00] uh, with a tongue tie release in malfunctional therapy, which is really important. Get rid of. ADHD like symptoms. You know what I always tell parents is like, look, if I do a tongue tie release and your kid is cured of a DH, adhd, they didn’t have a DH adhd.

[00:33:14] Justin Villafane: They had poor sleep. And poor sleep. Kids are crazy and like we drag when we’re tired and so I, I make it very, uh, I make it a point to be like, Hey, I’m not out here fixing all these things. It’s just you didn’t really have some of those things. And some people do. Some people have big adenoids, big tonsils and tongue tie and uh, um, uh, myofunctional therapy aren’t gonna fix that if they have grade four tonsils and huge adenoids.

[00:33:42] Justin Villafane: Um, but that’s part of the comprehensive care. We take A-C-D-C-T. Let the patients know. So I just wanna throw that disclaimer in there. I don’t want anybody yelling at me after today, so

[00:33:52] VIctoria Peterson: I appreciate that too. I wish I still had this. I think, oh gosh, Bruce and I hosted like one of the first [00:34:00] sleep apnea conferences that brought multiple people in.

[00:34:03] VIctoria Peterson: I’m gosh, I’m gonna say we were circuit. 2008, something like that, like way back in the day. And he had a slide up of um. If you have sleep apnea, here are the 42 things that you could be diagnosed with. You know, but they’re gonna give you all of these medications for this stuff. But really you can’t breathe, you know?

[00:34:31] VIctoria Peterson: And, and he went through this whole lit, I loved it when Bruce would get passionate about something. ’cause then he, he would tunnel vision on it, research it, and then come back and go, you know, all they really needed was vitamin C. They didn’t need 16 different drugs. Right. And that’s our healthcare system.

[00:34:48] VIctoria Peterson: So thank you for being that as well. And I know you’ve taken some heat about that. And I’m really also proud of you that you took a proactive stance. You’ve now. Put on frequently asked [00:35:00]questions in your, uh, and you believe like we do, education is your best marketing, so let’s educate the patients. Let’s educate the profession because there is a huge gap medically and dentally about what is legally accepted as a standard of care.

[00:35:17] VIctoria Peterson: Is at the minimum bar so we don’t all get sued and you know, you don’t have patient liability, but between the minimum, which I have to go off camera, it’s way down here and ideal. There’s a whole rainbow of, of, of opportunity and, and things that you can do. And so, um, you really do. I got, I’m gonna have you back ’cause there’s so much, I only got to ask you two questions and there’s like 15 more.

[00:35:45] VIctoria Peterson: I wanna explore how you delegate, how your leadership shifted, how you’ve empowered your office manager. So will you come back and, uh, be my guest again?

[00:35:55] Justin Villafane: Anytime, Victoria, I’m happy to do it. I appreciate everything that you guys have helped me with [00:36:00] and you’ve really changed my practice, my life, you know, everything.

[00:36:04] Justin Villafane: It all kind of stems from that. So appreciate you guys.

[00:36:07] VIctoria Peterson: Oh, we appreciate you too. And again, if you’re feeling alone, if you’re struggling, uh, take it to heart. You know? Uh, Justin, I just can’t tell you how, um, proud I am. Uh, I just wanna reflect back that when you’re in a trough and more money is going out than coming in, it takes courage to.

[00:36:28] VIctoria Peterson: Pull outta your savings or get a loan or do whatever you do and kind of roll the dice and try something new. And I’m, I’m so glad that you did, because your patients deserve you. Dentistry deserves you. You’re a great mentor, you’re a great clinician, and, uh, I’m so happy about the way you’ve turned things around for your, your patients, your practice, and your family.

[00:36:52] Justin Villafane: Thank you so much. I appreciate that.

[00:36:55] VIctoria Peterson: All right. This is a wrap for investment grade practice. Uh, our, our [00:37:00] mission here is to help you become even more compassionate, preventative, and comprehensive in everything that you do with your patients, with your business, with yourself. I look forward to seeing you again on the next episode.